On which I write about the books I read, science, science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that I want to. Currently trying to read and comment upon every novel that has won the Hugo and International Fantasy awards.

Sunday, September 3, 1978

Comments: 1978 is the year that Star Wars won a Hugo award. The world of science fiction film can be split into two parts: before Star Wars, and after Star Wars. Before Star Wars science fiction movies were usually low-budget, and almost always regarded as throwaway filler by movie studios made only to mollify the minority of movie goers who enjoyed that sort of movie. And then George Lucas came along and changed the game with an homage to the old Flash Gordon movie serials. From 1978 forward, science fiction films would be touted as summer blockbusters. Just compare the production values of Star Wars to the "best" of the 1977 nominees - Logan's Run - and the shift is apparent. And while Star Wars' $11 million budget was comparable to the $9 million budget for Logan's Run, the box office for the two movies was radically different. Logan's Run did well, with a box office run of $25 million, making back its production costs plus a modest profit. Star Wars, on the other hand, earned $410 million during its initial theatrical run (when one includes the box office from its international release). After Star Wars, nothing in filmed science fiction would be the same.

The rest of the Hugo's were fairly normal. Frederik Pohl won the Best Novel award for his brilliant novel Gateway. Spider and Jeane Robinson won for Stardance, and Harlan Ellison won yet another Hugo for Jeffty Is Five. Perhaps the most interesting development in the fiction awards was that Joan D. Vinge won a Hugo for her story Eyes of Amber, which when coupled with Jeanne Robinson's shared victory for Stardance, means that women won in two of the four written fiction categories in a single year. Another interesting bit of trivia is that Alice B. Sheldon was nominated for two different Hugo awards under two different names: Once in the Novelette category as Raccoona Sheldon for The Screwfly Solution, and another in the Short Story category as James Tiptree, Jr. for Time-Sharing Angel.

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